Nursery school employee held for allegedly force-feeding boy wasabi-laced chicken

A nursery school employee who appeared to take sadistic pleasure from allegedly force-feeding a small boy fried chicken covered in the pungent condiment paste wasabi, was arrested on assault charges Thursday.

It was the second time Manami Nanmoku, 28, who works at a Tokyo nursery school, was arrested for an act of cruelty toward a child.

According to the police, Nanmoku, who lives in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, used her smartphone to record a 4-year-old boy eating the fried chicken laced with grated Japanese horseradish paste, which can cause the sinuses to burn and the eyes to water.

When the boy began to cry in the video, the voice of a laughing Nanmoku can be heard in the background saying, “If you spit it out I’ll smack you!”

The suspect later told police, “He’s a child who doesn’t listen. I wanted to see how he would react and did it partly for fun.”

Police said Nanmoku is suspected of shoving the fiery food into the boy’s mouth on the morning of Sept. 22 last year at the nursery school in Kita Ward.

Nanmoku was also arrested in January for allegedly covering the mouth of another boy, aged 6, with adhesive tape and ripping it off for fun.